Is Human Handedness Universal? Ethological Analyses from Three Traditional Cultures

TLDR

Right‑handedness has been described as universal in humans, yet evidence is limited to indirect, tool‑use–focused questionnaires, and comprehensive ethological data are largely absent. The authors coded spontaneous manual activity from cinematic archives of the G/wi San, Himba, and Yanomamö societies to assess hand use. Across these three preliterate cultures, hand use was weakly right‑dominant overall, with most individuals mixed‑handed except for precision‑gripping tool use, which was exclusively right‑handed.

Abstract

Abstract Right‐handedness in Homo sapiens is claimed to be qualitatively different from that of other primates, at species level, and to be universal across all cultures. Ethnographic indicators are sparse, however, being mostly indirect rather than direct observations of selected motor patterns. Ethological study of hand use, i.e. observation of a wide range of everyday behavioural patterns performed spontaneously, is missing. We coded such manual activity from cinematic archives of three traditional societies: G/wi San of Botswana, Himba of Namibia and Yanomamö of Venezuela. Results showed a consistent but weak right‐hand dominance across these three preliterate cultures. Most individuals showed mixed‐, rather than right‐handedness, irrespective of whether or not object manipulation was involved. The notable exception was tool use, which was markedly right‐handed, and only precision‐gripping tool use was normally performed exclusively with the right hand. Most questionnaires that measure handedness focus on precision tool use (and so are likely to be biased accordingly) rather than on more comprehensive ethological measures that include non‐object‐manipulatory, self‐directed and socially communicative patterns of behaviour.